The total assets of the Merck Group amounted to € 22,120 million as of December 31, 2011. This represents a decrease of € 268 million or 1.2% over 2010. The decline is primarily due to the partial covering of pension obligations of Merck KGaA. As part of a Contractual Trust Arrangement (CTA), in 2011 Merck KGaA transferred liquid assets amounting to € 520 million to a trustee, Merck Pensionstreuhand e.V., Darmstadt. The trustee used € 218 million of these liquid assets to acquire Merck Capital Asset Management Limited, Malta, which holds the financial assets to cover pension obligations. These assets were previously disclosed separately in the balance sheet. As a result of netting the new plan assets against the pension obligations, total assets declined accordingly in 2011.
The equity ratio was 47.4% as of December 31, 2011, increasing by 1.1 percentage points compared to December 31, 2010 (46.3%).
The considerably higher level of net financial debt (financial debt minus cash and cash equivalents as well as short-term securities/financial assets) resulting from the acquisition of Millipore in 2010 was reduced by € 1,000 million from € 4,484 million at the end of 2010 to € 3,484 million as of December 31, 2011. This is mainly attributable to the very good development of free cash flow in 2011.
The two rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s adjusted their ratings in 2010 owing to the higher debt level resulting from the Millipore acquisition. While Standard & Poor’s issued a rating of BBB+ with a stable outlook on March 2, 2010 (previously: A-), Moody’s changed its rating on July 16, 2010 from A3 before the acquisition to Baa2 (stable outlook). The ratings remained unchanged in 2011.
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